Netanyahu may or may not like it (probably the former is the answer) but what happened yesterday proves that while Israel is cementing good relationships with countries like India, not a marginal world power, there is no substitute to the alliance with the US.

Not only have Netanyahu and his cohorts systematically been engaged in rancorous public narratives against the Palestinians, but they have taken action that could only attest to his unwavering commitment to expand the settlements and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Abbas should not be expected to magically relieve the suffering of the Palestinian, but to preserve his credibility and his standing among the Palestinian people he needs to take action, not just make statements.

It is time is for the Palestinians to reexamine the shifting political landscape in Israel and among themselves and change course now, however incongruous that may be, because it is indispensable to their overall objective.

Leave it to Netanyahu, however, to use the Gaza experience to justify the continuation of the occupation rather than working out airtight plans with the PA that would entail security measures to ensure that the West Bank does not become a staging ground for attacks on Israel.

Should Israel and Hamas achieve their stated objectives, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, as a whole, will take a dramatically different turn, change the nature of the conflict, and substantially improve the prospect for peace. The question is: Will their political circumstances and the reality they face lead to such an outcome?

In his recent meeting with Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he was "committed to the vision of peace for two states for two peoples." That sounds nice. But if he'd been pressed, Netanyahu might have admitted that the two states he had in mind were Israel and the U.S., not Israel and Palestine.

If donors want to finally contribute to a just and lasting peace, then they need to take a more balanced approach that includes inviting Hamas into the political process and holding Israel accountable for its actions.

His failure to strike a balance between his justifiable resistance to the occupation and the need to rally the support of the Israeli public was a major blunder, deeply injurious to the Palestinian cause.

The Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in June designated an ancient Native American complex known as Poverty Point, east of Monroe, as Louisiana's first World Heritage site.

Were the PA to join the ICC and initiate a case against Israel, it would be adhering to a strategy long advocated for by Palestinian civil society to use mechanisms of popular pressure -- legal action, boycotts, protests -- to advance national aims.

The new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has immediately raised the same old question: Will it last, or is it merely just another pause, providing the prelude for the next round of fighting à la previous ceasefires? I believe the current ceasefire is different as it was achieved under completely different circumstances and may well last.

The simplistic narratives spinning around the war about Gaza only make things worse for its victimized citizenry. For Israelis and for those truly interested in a positive future for Gaza, it is essential to understand that Hamas and the Palestinians who live there are not one and the same.

Extolling the virtues of a ceasefire in the Gaza war that collapsed barely two hours after it took effect, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry inadvertently highlighted the root cause of the failure of international efforts to silence the guns in the Palestinian territory and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.